Cooperate or Collapse

The latest research has looked into the causes of societies failing or collapsing more extensively than ever. This could help in finding out how to fix Philippine society. Why Nations Fail(link to blog) by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson as well as Collapse: Why Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (link to Wikipedia) by anthropologist Jared Diamond are the strongest works on this matter to date. Wikipedia (link) summarizes the reasons for societal collapse as follows:

Common factors that may contribute to societal collapse are economical, environmental, social and cultural, and disruptions in one domain sometimes cascade into others. In some cases a natural disaster (e.g. tsunami, earthquake, massive fire or climate change) may precipitate a collapse. Other factors such as a Malthusian catastrophe, overpopulation or resource depletion might be the proximate cause of collapse. Significant inequity may combine with lack of loyalty to a central power structure and result in an oppressed lower class rising up and taking power from a smaller wealthy elite. The diversity of forms that societies evolve corresponds to diversity in their failures.

Damage to Culture

A lot of things point to the Philippines as a society that has already collapsed in the past. Rizal and others have written extensively on how the fabric of society was damaged by the encomienda system, “producing a race without a mind and without a heart” according to his milestone work “The Philippines, A Century Hence“. Get Real Philippines, while being exaggerated and pro-dictatorial in its conclusions, has indeed described phenomena similar to those in James Fallows’ “A Damaged Culture” (link). One of the most damaged cultures is that of the Ik (link):

an ethnic group numbering about 10,000 people living in the mountains of northeastern Uganda near the border with Kenya…

were displaced from their land to create the Kidepo Valley National Park and consequently suffered extreme famine. Also, their weakness relative to other tribes meant they were regularly raided. The Ik are subsistence farmers who grind their own grain…

The Ik people live in several small villages arranged in clusters, which comprise the total “community”. Each small village is surrounded by an outer wall, then sectioned off into familial (or friend-based) “neighborhoods” called Odoks, each surrounded by a wall. Each Odok is sectioned into walled-off households called asaks, with front yards (for lack of a better term) and in some cases, granaries.

Children by age three or four are sometimes permanently expelled from the household and form groups called age-bands consisting of those within the same age group. The ‘Junior Group’ consists of children from the ages of three to eight and the ‘Senior Group’ consists of those between eight and thirteen.

No adults look after the children, who teach each other the basics of survival. However, it is not certain whether this practice is typical Ik tradition or merely triggered by unusual famine conditions. Joseph A. Tainter proposes this fragmentation to be an artifact of the dire circumstances where each person must depend on their own resources alone to find food and the age peers band together primarily to protect themselves from older stronger children who would take their food.

Much worse than the batang hamog that Karl Garcia mentioned in the past article, showing that there are degrees of damage to culture, much like there are degrees of how one can burn oneself. There is a study by the anthropologist Turnbull which is controversial, but does summarize the worst aspects of what happened to the Ik as follows:

“There is no better or more heartbreaking example of the alienation of the human capacity to love than the story of the Ik tribe of Uganda. Colin Turnbull in his book Mountain People documents how Milton Obote nationalized traditional hunting lands as national park for European tourists, and prevented the Ik from hunting in their traditional hunting grounds. After a couple of generations of starvation conditions, the Ik, originally a cooperative, child loving tribe, became a group of selfish cruel people who don’t trust or help anybody.

Subsidiarity, Solidarity, Humanity

are the three aspects of a functioning society that Manong Sonny has mentioned. Karl Garcia in the previous article on serving the community and the environment has looked at how to build some degree of subsidiarity and solidarity – thereby increasing humanity in the long run – at the barangay and municipal level. This is the bottom-up approach, but I think one must add:

the state has to protect communities against impunity, i.e. armed violence. Lumad communities in Mindanao even organize their own schools, I have read, but are often prey to impunity.

the state has to make its basic services more accessible to communities. Not force people to go to different offices. Have extension offices in regions, municipalities, even in barangays.

the state has to develop more of a service-oriented mindset. This is hard in a country were not even banks are truly service-oriented yet. It would be less of a foreign body for the people.

Negosyo Centers, Justice on Wheels mentioned by Karl, pilot projects with courts working in Filipino like I mentioned are ideas like this. The popularity of both Binay and Duterte rests mainly on their having implemented citizen services at the local level. Even if they made their workarounds. I suspect that the principalia, the native chiefs whom the Spanish coopted to help rule, often made workarounds for their respective villages and were loved by their people if they did for their benefit. Hated if they insisted on implementing often impracticable Spanish laws to the letter.

The Polder Model

The Dutch have polders (link) and each community is in charge of not only warding off the sea, but managing its own natural resources and keeping things clean. Dutch water boards (link) are among the oldest democratic institutions of the country, democracy in its best form being people cooperating for their common interests. In the case of the water boards these are the interests:

managing water barriers, waterways, water levels, water quality and sewage treatment in their respective regions.

In the Philippines it could be making sure mountains are reforested (link) or at least planted with crops like moringa (link) and disaster mitigation. This is one level above the community level that Karl has mentioned in the previous article. Communities that are in the same zone could be encouraged to form alliances to ward of ecological collapse, mitigate natural catastrophes and increase agricultural productivity, possibly even allow for ecotourism. This is regional. The Dutch polder model (link) is also used to describe cooperation and balance of interests at a national level:

The Dutch polder model is characterised by the tri-partite cooperation between employers’ organisations such as VNO-NCW, labour unions such as the Federation Dutch Labour Movement, and the government. These talks are embodied in the Social-Economic Council (Dutch: Sociaal-Economische Raad, SER)… During the postwar period, the Catholic, Protestant, Christian, social-democratic, and liberal parties decided to work together to reconstruct the Netherlands, as did unions and employers’ organizations. Important institutions of the polder model, like the SER, were founded in this period… ever since the Middle Ages, when the process of land reclamation began, different societies living in the same polder have been forced to cooperate because without unanimous agreement on shared responsibility for maintenance of the dykes and pumping stations, the polders would have flooded and everyone would have suffered.

In the Philippines, the system of warring barangays worked well for a long time. But there were only about 4 million people in the country around 1800. Today there are 25 times as many people. History I have read mentions that landownership, for example, hardly mattered in the old Philippines because there was always enough new land to slash and burn, then leave after a while to regrow the forest. Now there are hardly any forests left. The population when Marcos rule ended was almost three times that of when Magsaysay’s plane crashed. Now there are nearly twice as many Filipinos as in 1986. Even if what they say is true that the Philippines could export rice during Marcos days, the present population and the land do not allow it anymore. The countries of the Mekong delta can produce rice more cheaply and in larger amounts. Time maybe to look at the Dutch way, people of the sea, survivors of calamities. Cooperate – or collapse.

hvrds
August 10, 2006 at 11:14 am (UTC 8) Link to this comment
Please note that we have certain myths about the formation of democracy especially since we are basically a colonial construct.
The evolution of democratic governments most especailly the American form went through the foundries of history. Struggle and demands of freedom. Below are exerpts from Lincoln’s first inaugural address. It clearly shows his briliant mind and devotion to duty, God and nation as he saw fit to carry out. He clearly declares that war is a political necessity if forced upon the government. At the tinme of his inaugural a few states had already seceeded from the Union. He was desperately still trying to win them back. Personally he was against slavery but :

…..”I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”

…. “Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them; and more than this, they placed in the platform for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:
Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.”

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I can not be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the ConstitutionÃ¢â‚¬â€which amendment, however, I have not seenÃ¢â‚¬â€has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

“The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose, but the Executive as such has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.

“Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with His eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.”

“By the frame of the Government under which we live this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief, and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance no Administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years.”

“My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.”
“In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Based on the value of gold today based on DJB’s piece on the cost of building Kennon Road today would be $2.6 billion. Gold costing between $650-$700 an ounce.

It is surprising that most people do not see the evolution of the original Jeffersonian Democrats to today and the evolution of the Hamiltonian Republicans to today’s Republicans. Hamilton was also a banker. The bank that he established still exists today in New York City. He set the foundation for the industrialists of the U.S. The Civil War was more about trade than slavery. The rapidly industrializing North versus the agricultural South. The industrialists funded Lincoln’s war. Lincoln’s first act was to prevent trade between the South and England and Europe. He imposed a blockade in New Orleans and all ports. Confederate money soon became worthless. No trade no gold. He continued the dirigist policy set up by Hamilton. Mercantilism and industrial policy guided by a national monetary system separate from Europe and England. It was Hamiltons idea of a national central bank that was formally initiated by Wilson in 1913. And strengthened by FDR in 1934 making it part of his government’s semi-command of the U.S. economy.

Most people debate about capitalism without realizing that capitalism is a social format like feudalism before it. Adam Smith saw the benefits of free land and free farmers in America. Everyone could have land. That was the basis of the agricultural revolution that propelled the U.S. to becoming number 1. Then the timing could not have been more perfect. Technological inventions started with the cotton gin in America then the steam engine in England then trains then the mass production of iron into steel through the Bessemer process. America actually never went through a feudal system. That is why they hate kings. America was democracy only for those farmers, tradesman and traders who were white and owned property. Everyone else had to fight for the right to vote. From being the farmers the sons and daughters later on became the labor force with the immigrants for the industrializing America. It was that labor force that later became the mass base for Jefferson’s Democrat. FDR institutionalized the union movement and till today there are many Republicans including the Bush’s who insider FDR to be a commie. LBJ finally freed all blacks with the signing of the Civil Rights Act and moved FDR’s ideas even more left with his Great Society policies. The biggest battle upcoming will be about universal healthcare and access to higher education by the vast majority in the U.S.

Keynesian though actually saved capitalism from collapsing. It actually requires a nation state to accomplish this. But it still does not solve the inherent aspect of capitalism – overcapcity.

It is so funny that many people point to Marxists who they believe are against capitalism. It actually is a social format that will occur when an economy evovles from agriculture to the industiralization process that will eventually even industrialize the agricultural process. Marx did not like the capitalists. But he liked the industrial revolution as this was going to free man from the toils of physical labor. His greatest error was in not realizing that the means of production is the human being. The amazing capacity of humans to create and change the universe. It brought with it the dangers also of destroying the world as we know it.

The basic problem that remains with command economies is simple. Initiative and innovation for the common good. Is technology for all humanity to benefit from or do we leave it to natural selection. Power can always be abused as when rtechnology is used to destroy human life on a scale unseen before. Hitler’s Germany industrialized the genocide of people. His brand of national democratic socialism. Stalin did it too and so did Mao. The white man did it on every continent including the Philippines to educate the savage.

Unfortunately there will be more commas and stuff that happens under the different brands for rationalizing (realativism). “Operation Iraqi Freedom” is one such brand. “Globalization” is another. Competitiveness another.

The genuis Intengan recently complained that the Philippines is a ‘dysfunctional patriarchal liberal democracy.’ A feudal liberal democracy is a contradiction in terms and in substance. It is oxymoronic. Morons would not know the difference. He takes great pains to avoid using Marxist sociological terms like feudalism. The present Pope had to be corrected when he related the Theology of Liberation to Marxist dogma. Marx was never an economist and should not be seen as one.His field was sociology and his ideas on that are most compelling as with Darwin. Darwin was about natures food chain and evolution being dependent on factor endowments and Marx was about the human food chain and the effects of technological advances on the food chain. Please note that when food becomes scarce even humans will eat each other.

Today so far two economists in the person of Robert Samuelson and Brain Arthur with the former Marxist Alvin Toffler say that we are seeing a new stage of development apart and substantially different that started with the industrial revolution. Toffler calls it the Third Wave. Samuelson simply calls it the next stage of capitalism.

those who believe in natural rights, the fruits of labor is property. Land is the means to acquire it in organized agricultural societies. Who owns the rivers and the seas?

Why will land be titled to a select few. The idea that the lucky sperm club members should own and control lands beqeuathed to them is a sacrilege.

Because most of these countries first developed their trading outposts first and later reverted back to agricultural/industrial development by command to change an event in history.

Their natural evolutionary process of climbing up the ladder of development was inverted. Trading entrepots imposed by outside forces.

That process of trading entrepots like Manila, Cebu etc. neglected the agricultural sector. So you have two social formats. Manila which is more integrated with its premeir colonial master while the rest of the agricultural sector lies moribund and stuck in primitve means of accumulation of the surplus. We sell crude resources in exchange for finished goods. If we were a country of 10 million people we could very easily ravage most of the islands for survival like we have already done.

While the accumulation of exporting resources (forrests)have seriously depleted the natural reservior of the country and now reverting back and trying to “modernize” a carabao rain fed agricultural system is more problematical.

Case in point; In the U.S., it is the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers that has the responsibility over all the rivers and waterways of the U.S. The natural erosion that occurs when rains bring with it top soil and rivers have to be continuosly silted. That silt is then redeopisted over acres of farms as it carries with nutirents of the soil.

Here in the Philippines the loss of arable land is continuing and the process of water depletion is contuing. It is allowed to wash into the oceans.

More progressive countries have very strict land use laws and follow this very strictly as land has a social function anbd economic function.

There is one philosophical reality that Adam Smith came out with before Marx. The value of eveything (price) is dependent on the labor value used in its creation. That is the foundation of property.

In all economies you have labor divided into the productive sectors and the unproductive sectors. The agricultural and industrial sector are the productive sectors while the service side is the unproductive sector. Again this is based on Adam Smith which Marx carried forward.

When Smith and later Marx referred to the productive forces they were referring to the productive sectors of the economy.

It is the labor valued expended that creates the natural price of things. Then these creations are then sold in the market for the market price. The fight ensues over that surplus generated. Who owns most of it and who shall preside over the sharing. That creates the eternal conflict between the workers and the one who owns the means of production.

The artisan class were to become the members of the proletariat. They are the builders. Your modern day engineers and scientists. It is they who will later move to reintegrate the agriculture sector into raising the productivity of growing food.

They will literally move mountains and create new rivers and systems of irrigation.

The wonders of China during the early pre-industrial years is they constructed like the Romans before them engineering works to create irrigation systems for their farmers.

But here in the Philippines the trading mindset which was imposed by the colonizers created a nation of traders/bankers. No builders. Hence the Philippines except for the rice terraces have no engineering landmarks built by man. Till today this mindset for trading still remains. We export our productive labor since there is no labor market for them.

That is not an accident. That was deliberate policy. That is precisely the policy imposed by the British in the colonies that was America and India. The U.S. fought a civil war becuase of that clashing policy. Gandhi and Nehru led that fight for economic autnonomy that led to political autonomy from the British.

The entire basis for measuring GDP is based on labor value added. The key is labor prodcutivity through the use of capital equipment. But it is precisely productive labor that also built the machines. Once again the artisans, engineers. If a country does not utilize its own labor to create that kind of productive value then the country will not go anywhere.

Why the Philippines remains poor? You cannot trust the economist (typically exemplified by GMA) method for accounting. It is all theoretical.

Our total external debt in 1985 was $26.6 billion. As of 2004, it has more than doubled at $60.55 billion greenbacks. (caffeine sparks blog)

On top of this figure, the figure (unknown) for foreign direct investments which are also an obligation due from domestic households for capital repatriation and profits.

As part of the financial system worldwide the government through the BSP guarantees the availability of foreign currency for this. Hence the domestic public sector debt is slightly larger than the total foreign debt. (All foreign debt whether private or public is part of the sovereign debt.

After the debt crisis in the eighties and again during the 90Ã¢â‚¬â„¢s ideas on a Soverign Debt Restructuring Mechanism was proposed by Jeffrey Sachs and former Treasury Secretary OÃ¢â‚¬â„¢Neill. Corporations are allowed to seek bankruptcy protection. Countries should be given the same privilege. Unfortunately they chose debasing currency as a solution.

They simply inflate the debt. Government ratios for total debt to GDP is based on using inflated GDP numbers. I hope people donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t get herniaÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s trying to think about this.

The acceptable inflation (debasing) standard for this year by the BSP is 4-5%. Depending where households are on the standard for the CPI that standard could be undervalued or overvalued for most. Most of all debasing currency is compounded thereby multiplying the pain.

Notes from the NSCB:

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Well, put simply, the CPI does not measure the average increase in your expenditures, whether as an individual or a family or a household! It was never meant to!Ã¢â‚¬Â

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now, if you really want to compute the average monthly increase in your own individual consumption, you must use the basket of commodities that you normally consume, which will naturally differ from the NSO basket. You must take out hair shampoo from the basket, for instance, if there is nothing to use it on! You also must use weights that reflect your own consumption pattern Ã¢â‚¬â€œ meaning that if you love food, your weights must show it! Depending on your chronological perspective, your CPI basket might include expenses for internet cafes; but if you had been a fan of Carmen Rosales and Rogelio de la Rosa, your CPI might include ballroom dancing fees for your favorite Attorney and ten different vitamins, valued of course at 20% discount, a privilege which, even those from Forbes Park and Ayala Alabang conscientiously (consciencelessly, some of my friends would sermon) avail of.Ã¢â‚¬Â Dr. Romulo A. Virola
Secretary General, NSCB

Ã¢â‚¬Å“When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I believe, a single instance of their having been fairly and completely paid. The liberation of public revenue, if it has ever been brought about at all, has always been brought about by bankruptcy; sometimes by an avowed one, but always by a real one, though frequently by a pretended payment (in a depreciated currency)Ã¢â‚¬Â¦.. When it becomes necessary for a state to declare itself bankrupt, in the same manner as when it becomes necessary for an individual to do so, a fair, open, and avowed bankruptcy is always the measure which is both least dishonourable to the debtor, and at least hurtful to the creditorÃ¢â‚¬Â
Adam Smith (Canaan 2000, Book V, Chapter III,pp.466 and 468)

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become ‘profiteers,’ who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.
Ã‚Â· Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) John Maynard Keynes

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson for writing a wonderful book about the role of institutions in shaping why countries are rich or poor. The book’s limitations, repeated now in their letter, are that they dismiss the roles of all other factors, especially geographic factors. That’s because of their oversimplified view of geography’s effects; their criticizing the straw man that geography explains everything (it doesn’t, and it’s not an alternative perspective but an additional perspective); and their failure to explain the origins of good institutions themselves.

The first point of their four-point letter is that tropical medicine and agricultural science aren’t major factors shaping national differences in prosperity. But the reasons why those are indeed major factors are obvious and well known. Tropical diseases cause a skilled worker, who completes professional training by age thirty, to look forward to, on the average, just ten years of economic productivity in Zambia before dying at an average life span of around forty, but to be economically productive for thirty-five years until retiring at age sixty-five in the US, Europe, and Japan (average life span around eighty). Even while they are still alive, workers in the tropics are often sick and unable to work. Women in the tropics face big obstacles in entering the workforce, because of having to care for their sick babies, or being pregnant with or nursing babies to replace previous babies likely to die or already dead. That’s why economists other than Acemoglu and Robinson do find a significant effect of geographic factors on prosperity today, after properly controlling for the effect of institutions.

Second, Acemoglu and Robinson deny that characteristics of a natural resource determine whether it’s a curse or a blessing. But characteristics of diamonds and oil notoriously promote corruption and civil wars more than do characteristics of iron and timber.

Third, geography has had a big effect on modern prosperity through permitting local ancient origins of agriculture, in turn permitting sedentary life and social complexity. While sedentary life and social complexity did develop before farming in a few exceptional cases, Acemoglu and Robinson’s assertion that as a generalization it is conventional wisdom among archaeologists will be news to archaeologists. Acemoglu and Robinson misquote me in saying that I claim the Fertile Crescent to have been the only area where local agriculture could have arisen. Of course not: instead, I cited agricultural historians who showed that the Fertile Crescent was the only such area in western Eurasia; my book Guns, Germs, and Steel discussed at length how local agriculture also arose in at least eight areas outside western Eurasia. Acemoglu and Robinson are correct that the timing of the Neolithic Revolution doesn’t account for prosperity differences within Eurasia today; it “merely” accounts for about half of prosperity differences today around the world as a whole.

Finally, as readers may quickly confirm for themselves, it is indeed a fair characterization of Acemoglu and Robinson’s book to say that their theory is as if institutions appeared at random. Although their letter describes institutional variation today as a systematic outcome of historical processes, much of their book is actually devoted to relating story after story purportedly explaining how institutional variation developed unsystematically and at random, as a result of particular events happening in particular places at critical junctures.

“Wala tayong magagawa.” It’s the wife’s most dreaded response to a question she would matter-of-factly ask when in the Philippines – for something as simple as an information. And which Google translates to “helplessness.”

Does the sense of helplessness come from the acceptance of “destiny”? The blog has referenced Rizal’s genius for seeing through the fraud personified by Padre Damaso. But that’s over a century ago!

Irineo, Karl..I aave read all Jared Diamond’s book and Why Nations Fail.. Diamond is an anthropologist who did most of his field work in Papaua New Guinea…. Acemoglu & Robinson are economists..It is natural that they disagree…

The interesting thing is that Diamond’s hypothesis is just that – a hypothesis as we do not have primary sources for any of the societies that he discusses as collapsing : eg. Easter Island..

In my opinion economic growth and prosperity come from inclusive growth…There are countries which have very similar resource bases but very different economic & social characteristics. Compare Argentina and Australia..They both originate as colonies dependent on raw unprocessed agricultural exports..But they have had very different fates politically and economically..Why ? The answer lies in the political institutions that in Australia’s case fostered inclusive growth since 1945.And which promoted prosperity & wealth for an elite until 2001 in Argentina…

Now what about the Philippines ? Well the original Spanish ‘economic model’ was completely disinterested in the prosperity of the Indios..And the friars and monks were only interested in the ‘fate of the souls of Indios’..And once baptised they become subjects of the Spanish kings and had to pay tribute..and so effectively poorer ..Added to that the Indios were not allowed to defend themselves from outsider Moros attacks….Duhhhhh ?

Net impact the Indios were preyed upon by Moros and impoverished by the Spanish…(But at least they went to heaven not hell when dead or so the priests say..Me I am dubious )

Abaca & Sugar were early export crops after the 1830’s..Coconuts became a growth crop later on. But really nothing changed at the Indio village level : grow rice and a few veggies & fruits and work to pay tribute & support the church..

The real money earned from exports stayed inn the cities where the elites lived : Spanish & mestica with a trickle of foreigners..It was not inclusive growth & prosperity.

Post 1946 : and most of the foreigners are sent home or only allowed to stay as guests not the governing elite..But local elite famillies replaced them and did what the foreigners had shown them how to do for 300 years…In that context is Marcos a surprise ?Probably not.

Post EDSA : now it is OFW’s and BPO’s : and for the first time a very different economic process is happening..Money, wages, on a mass scale for ordinary folks…And a new middle class is emerging out of that process…I think it is far more inclusive than anything that happened before it.So pray it does not aborted by a major down turn in the Middle East or in the USA or Europe

The deforestation of the island was not only the death knell for the elaborate social and ceremonial life it also had other drastic effects on every day life for the population generally. From 1500 the shortage of trees was forcing many people to abandon building houses from timber and live in caves, and when the wood eventually ran out altogether about a century later everyone had to use the only materials left. They resorted to stone shelters dug into the hillsides or flimsy reed huts cut from the vegetation that grew round the edges of the crater lakes. Canoes could no longer be built and only reed boats incapable of long voyages could be made. Fishing was also more difficult because nets had previously been made from the paper mulberry tree (which could also be made into cloth) and that was no longer available. Removal of the tree cover also badly affected the soil of the island, which would have already suffered from a lack of suitable animal manure to replace nutrients taken up by the crops. Increased exposure caused soil erosion and the leaching out of essential nutrients. As a result crop yields declined. The only source of food on the island unaffected by these problems was the chickens. As they became ever more important, they had to be protected from theft and the introduction of stone-built defensive chicken houses can be dated to this phase of the island’s history. It became impossible to support 7,000 people on this diminish ing resource base and numbers fell rapidly

After 1600 Easter Island society went into decline and regressed to ever more primitive conditions. Without trees, and so without canoes, the islanders were trapped in their remote home, unable to escape the consequences of their self-inflicted, environmental collapse. The social and cultural impact of deforestation was equally important. The inability to erect any more statues must have had a devastating effect on the belief systems and social organisation and called into question the foundations on which that complex society had been built. There were increasing conflicts over diminishing resources resulting in a state of almost permanent warfare. Slavery became common and as the amount of protein available fell the population turned to cannibalism. One of the main aims of warfare was to destroy the ahu of opposing clans. A few survived as burial places but most were abandoned. The magnificent stone statues, too massive to destroy, were pulled down. The first Europeans found only a few still standing when they arrived in the eighteenth century and all had been toppled by the 1830s. When they were asked by the visitors how the statues had been moved from the quarry, the primitive islanders could no longer remember what their ancestors had achieved and could only say that the huge figures had `walked’ across the island. The Europeans, seeing a treeless landscape, could think of no logical explanation either and were equally mystified.

In this book, Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of the collapse of its civilization. The collapse theory, advanced most recently by Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting, is based on the documented overexploitation of natural resources, particularly woodlands, on which Easter Island culture depended. Deforestation is said to have led to erosion, followed by hunger, conflict, and economic and cultural collapse. Drawing on scientific data and historical sources, including the shipping journals of the Dutch merchant who was the first European to visit the island in 1722, Boersema shows that deforestation did not in fact jeopardize food production and lead to starvation and violence. On the basis of historical and scientific evidence, Boersema demonstrates how Easter Island society responded to cultural and environmental change as it evolved and managed to survive.

But I forgot one key way that the 2 countries differ : migration policies..
Argentina has a very open immigration policy welcoming people from all over the world no matter what skills they have or capital they bring with them. In fact people wanting to enter Argentina from the EDSUR bloc of South America can do so without a visa or request for permanent residence.

So there are a lot of homeless immigrants from African countries and from Bolivia, Venezuela, Columbia and Paraguay and in the past Brazil…Schooling is free and so is medical care in hospital so there are significant attractions…

Now this is inclusive.But I suggest that Argentina has imported poverty and also put a cap on wage increases.

By contrast Australia has a rigorous screening process for all applicants who put in to migrate or even enter the country. ( There is no race or gender or discrimination now. ) It focuses on skills needed in Australia, business migrants, and then permits some limited numbers of family re-union and refugees. And immigrants who are convicted criminals committing crimes with a sentence of more than 12 months in jail, after their time in jail are deported.

As a consequence of this exclusive immigration policy there is not much ‘importing of poverty’..And this helps ensure a more inclusive Australian society with higher wage rates and a significant incentive for immigrants to not commit crimes.

“The major thesis of Acemoglu and Robinson is that economic prosperity depends above all on the inclusiveness of economic and political institutions. Only a functioning democratic and pluralistic state which guarantees the rule of law is able to exploit the ideas and talents, which are spread among the whole population of a nation. In extractive systems (autocracies) however, entrepreneurs and citizens have no incentives to invest in and work on innovations, which are necessary to create prosperity, because the ruling elites are afraid of creative destruction. Creative destruction would fabricate new groups which competed for power against ruling elites. Hence, elites would lose their exclusive access to the economic and financial resources of a country. The authors bring in the emergence of democratic pluralism in Great Britain after the Glorious Revolution in 1688 as being decisive for the Industrial Revolution as an example as well as the fall of the Soviet Union.”
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We have A NEDA full of geniuses,but the question is are they supported economically by our government.
One issue of a disagreeable NEDA chief then out he or she goes.This has happened time and again.

The leaders of our institutions get changed to often, it is useless to stay 30 years in a government agency without tasting the top.
Well some say it s ok,because the top is reserved for poltical appontees,and theybwould not know what to do without them.

Prior to our rapid urbanization,fsome forner hacienderos became real estate moguls.
They convert their agricultural lands to subdivisions to escape land reform.

The farmers always want a big family,because they always think the more children,the more will look after the farm.
But laws divide that land when owner dies to all heirs,so that will only leave a flower pot size of a land to each children.

So to hell with farming,go to the cities to find a new life.
Hard times came,no jobs and there is nothing to do but drink and have babies.

There are other stories of why our population exploded.
Some say we are nit really over populated,just too much on the urban areas.

Some say without the over population,we would not get billions of Dollars in remittances.

Every culture has sustained some degree of damage in its history. In the case of the Iks it is like a third-degree burn, the only solution is probably to have them adopted by others. The Filipino case is like a second-degree burn in some places, a first-degree burn in others – a real-life second degree burn can heal quite well.

Some notes –
on Davide: 1) must keep study speed about uneven agriculture; its agronomics, especially supply-demand of specialty crops; infrastructure; what initiatives to maximize, what to optimize; what to do about soil health renewal and upkeep, for example 2) object-areas for further study: the Cagayan Valley; its demographics are fast changing, viz Tuguegarao & Ilagan; also wind-farms

on Laguna de Bay and Taal Lake: maybe it’s time to create water authorities for husbanding their hydrologies

Laguna Bay & Taal Lake, cont’d: Pretty soon spillway from the tributaries of Marikina River must be optimized for freshwater utilization and feed to Laguna de Bay; same will be true for the Norzagaray system feeding the future communities/agriculture of the eastern Central Plains – bright future, I think;